Review No.201. The Glenlivet 18 Year Old

August 8, 2019/

The Glenlivet brand needs no introduction. I have tried the 12 and 15 year old, both of which were quite different to one another. The 12 being a solid introductory malt with floral notes but not much else and the 15 taking it a bit further with extra richness imparted by extra maturation in french oak. Neither really excited me but I was still curious to try the 18 year old because I wanted to see what a large volume produce such as Glenlivet are possible of producing at such an age.

Summary: This is lighter than expected. The balance of malt and sweet is very pleasant and makes it very drinkable. Amongst the vanilla and floral notes there is a touch of smoke which balances well with the rest of the flavours, the peat doesn’t dominate but it noticeable enough to be a welcome addition. Some spice comes through in the form of honey, ginger and cinnamon. There is a generic sweet fruitiness to this which I can’t quite pin down. Overall the gentleness of the delivery and texture makes this a solid single malt but it suffers from the same problem as the 12 and 15 year old malts in that I do not find it interesting.

Scoring scale: My scores reflect a balance of the overall experience, availability and cost for a whisky,

1 – not to my preference

2 – tastes fine but does not excite me

3 – more to my liking and would revisit occasionally

4 – very much to my liking and would consider as a regular feature on my whisky shelf